Roses to Aatia Jaine' Davison, a 14-year old freshman at East Chapel Hill High School who has been spending her holiday season thinking not about what she wants to get, but what she's able to give.

Davison, who has been a participant in the school system's Blue Ribbon mentorship program for six years, volunteered one Saturday with the N.C. Food Bank, an experience that brought home to her just how much need is out there.

Back home, she thought about how she might be able to help, and she came up with a clever idea. She made up a flier, ran off copies and stapled them to plastic grocery bags. Then she went through her neighborhood and hung the bags on about 90 doors. The fliers asked people to fill the bags with canned goods, and Aatia would come back the following Saturday to pick the donations up.

Last week, her mom said, Aatia had 200 cans of food piled up in the living room, all of which they delivered to the N.C. Food Bank last weekend.

Giving back is nothing new for Aatia. In the past few years, she has volunteered at her old elementary school, collected personal hygiene kits to send to an orphanage in Haiti and gathered children's books to send to Africa.

And that is the holiday spirit.

Roses to Hillsborough Elementary School first-grade teacher Jane Vacchiano and the students and other teachers there who joined forces to help local animals who have no home.

Vacchiano leads an animal shelter donation program at the school. Throughout the year, students and teachers fill big boxes in the three classroom buildings with pet food, toys, treats, blankets, towels and others items.

When boxes are full, they are taken to the Orange County Animal Shelter. Donations are needed not only by the shelter itself but for families who can't afford pet food and care.

Last week, staff from the shelter visited the school. They presented a program about their animals, and then the children helped load the donations on the shelter's van.

What the kids learn through this program and others like it may not be on the standardized tests, but it's at least as important as anything that is.

Roses to everyone who participated in the Orange County Rape Crisis Center's recent fundraising Holiday Auction, presented by Sports Endeavors at the Sheraton Hotel.

The auction is the OCRCC's main fundraising event, and its success is crucial to allowing the center to carry on its mission of stopping sexual violence and its impact through support, education and advocacy.

This year's auction and related donations have garnered some $75,000 (the dessert auction alone, in which tables of guests bid together to win their pick of nearly 30 delectable desserts, raised $5,700).

Thanks to those who donated goods and services to be auctioned, to those who attended and bid on the auction offerings, and especially to the folks at the Rape Crisis Center itself.